Found in Translation: Local Publisher Brings Alive the Story of a Somali Olympian and Refugee for Macedonian Readers

On 4 December in Skopje, independent publisher Comics Bookshop Bunker promoted an unusual graphic novel: a biography of Somali Olympic runnerSamia Yusuf Omar, who perished while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea as a refugee in 2012.

Comic book publishing is a rarity in Macedonia, as is publishing of books promoting empathy for migrants.

Touched by Samia Yusuf Omar’s story, German comics author and journalist Reinhard Kleist published the biographical graphic novel An Olympic Dream – The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar in 2015. Since then, the story has been translated into English, French, Arabic and Slovenian.

In my role as Global Voices’ Central and Eastern Europe Editor, I spoke with Jovan Bitoljanu, co-owner of Bunker Comics Bookshop, about his experience with publishing the translations in the Macedonian and Albanian languages.

Jovan Bitoljanu (JB): In 2011 we opened the bookshop dedicated to comics. After six years we took the next logical step of creating of our own production.

When we discussed our firstborn (and our publishing policy in general) we outlined several things which are very important to us: creating a supply of comics in our language, which at the moment are nonexistent or minuscule; then, combating the stereotype that comics are just a means for cheap amusement; and inspiring our readers to become more actively engaged in society, by selecting themes with strong humane messages.

I think “An Olympic Dream” fulfills all these criteria, and easily fits into our vision as a publishing house.

JB: The beginning is always hard. We thought we’d have difficulties to settle the copyright, but that went surprisingly easy. Representatives of the copyright holder, a leading German publishing house with over 60 years of experience, were thrilled with the idea and proved very kind and eager to help.

The technical preparation took a lot of time, because we wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t make some cardinal beginners’ mistake. We must have read the comics over a hundred times, and it’s still possible that we missed something. But these are growing pains we must endure at the beginning.

The support from the Macedonian Olympic Committee was crucial. In this regard we’d like to appeal to all who can support the comics medium and the spread of comics culture in Macedonia. Where there is good will, solutions can be found.

Finally I must say we are satisfied with the way the publication turned out at the end. We could compare it with some other editions of the same graphic novel and without false modesty we may say that ours is at least at the same level.

Over the last few years, right-wing populists have targeted the citizens of Macedonia through propaganda intended to demonize the refugees that pass through the country along the Balkan Route. In the months ahead of October 2017 elections, the intensity of this xenophobic and Islamophobic campaign increased, but failed to achieve high levels of political mobilization. However, these sustained efforts appear to have raised ethnic and religious tensions between the local populations. A book promoting empathy for the African refugees could be seen as directly challenging these narratives.

FS: How has the graphic novel been received so far? Did the anti-refugee campaign or other xenophobic factors affect it?

JB: We live in turbulent times in which daily political events affect the mood of many. And we don’t intend to enter professional engagement in politics. We just want to publish comics.

However, here we have a comic dealing with the fate of the refugees, and on top of that, we printed it in both the Macedonian and Albanian languages. It’s inevitable that some people might try to drag us into ‘the machine.’

In particular in this region, with all conflicts and divisions, it’s easy to inflame tensions and find flaws. That approach is clearly not working, so instead of that, we think it’s time to find the common elements that bind us, and love for comics can be such a connecting factor between people.

Some negative comments by nationalists, who think that Macedonian should be the only official language in Macedonia, included cliché accusations that publishing a book in Albanian contributes to what they call the “dismemberment” of the country.

JB: Luckily, we received far fewer negative than positive reactions. They are mostly isolated cases and we are glad that the people chose to focus their attention on Samia’s story, instead of other, completely irrelevant issues. Her story (as many others) is too precious in comparison to “counting blood cells” [idiom denoting Balkan nationalists’ penchant for biased analysis of ethnic or racial origins].

On the other hand, our experience showed that if we turn to one another and work togather, we can achieve fantastic results. And again these benefits of joint work far surpass the divisions.

For instance, comics fans from Kosovo often come to our shop to buy comics published in Serbian or Croatian. Printing our comics in Albanian contributed to lowering the market price for the customers for both issues, due to increased general volume.

We are bound to each other, to work towards synergy and dissemination of different values. Therefore it’s important to us that the reception and the reviews of the graphic novel had been excellent so far, and we hope that the sales will follow suit in the same trend.